Pilgrimage
by Megalomaniac2
Summary: Prequel to 'Razor.' Intrigued by the legends, Leoben seeks out the First Hybrid against Cavil's warnings.
1. One: Two

**Pilgrimage**

Author's Note: Set in late Season 2, after the Battle of the Resurrection Ship but before the events of 'Razor.'

**Chapter One: Two**

It starts, as so many things do, with the Hybrid.

She lies in her tank at the center of a star of metal and flesh, and she babbles, and she sees, and she prophesizes, and only one listens. He kneels by her warm pod of wires and gel as though it were an altar, his brow furrowed as he contemplates what spills from her lips.

_Correcting for drift/Thy arrows are swift/C02 levels nominal/The fiend stands on the brink and ponders his voyage warily/The morning star drifts in the darkness first and forgotten lost and remembered/the myths in the minds of metal may become a monument/the star shall be a guide to the prophet his doom and his joy/the pregnant causes are mixed confusedly/adjusting fuel mix by .02%/the first of the seers lighting the way for the prophet and the fiend/smokeless fire lost and found/prophecy begets prophecy begets destiny/memory come out of shadow to return to the fire..._

Leoben listens to every word, and he understands, and then he begins to smile.

Gentle mist swirls around the fleshy floor of the biomechanical Raider bay, and Cavil is somewhat uncomfortable, here in this place that's so much like a womb. He stares at his brother. "The First Hybrid? You can't be serious."

Leoben just beams. "It all makes sense, brother. 'Myths in the minds of metal.' The old-model Centurions, back on the Colony, they used to-"

"Talk about the mythical progenitor of our new fleshy selves, yes, I know, we've all _heard_ that particular fable." Cavil rolls his eyes and sighs theatrically. "Machines with mythology. Amazing. Makes me glad the new ones can't talk. It tends to be difficult to spread superstitions about without a mouth."

Sarcasm has never deterred Leoben. "But what if it was true? Come on, think about it. We must have come from somewhere. We didn't just evolve from the old Centurions to what we are now overnight, that's not how things grow, that's not how they change. There had to have been some kind of intermediary phase, a prototype-"

"Okay, let me... just go ahead and stop you right there before you get too carried away," Cavil says, holding up his hands in a 'no-go' gesture. "First of all, you're getting awfully close to certain big questions about our origins that we have all been _explicitly _programmed not to even think about." Like the Final you-know-who, although neither of them says it out loud. "You also might have noticed that we kind of have a lot going on right now with two Battlestars on the loose, a pair of Basestars destroyed, and a Resurrection Ship out of commission. This isn't the time for our race to waste any resources on mystic quests for lost Hybrids."

Leoben nods, understanding more than his brother realizes. He knows Cavil wouldn't want something like the First to be found even if he did believe it existed, and chalks it up to another instance of his brother's deeply saddening lack of faith. "One Heavy Raider for a search. That's all I ask. You don't need to call a vote for something that small. If anyone asks, I'll say it's for a stellar survey. From a certain point of view, it will even be true." He smiles. "I know you hate when I make a fuss about these things, Cavil."

Cavil recognizes the underlying threat, but shows no sign of it. "No kidding. You know how the Sixes get whenever anything _religious_ gets brought up. The last thing we need is your divine fervour becoming contagious." He sighs theatrically, stroking his chin, and pretends to consider a decision that has already been made. He can give in now, or watch this little spark of inquisitiveness grow into a wildfire that will be much harder to contain. "Okay, as long as you keep this between you and your copies, you've got your Raider. But there's just one problem. Accepting for the moment that you going off on your own to find a nonexistent failed science experiment _isn't_ a terrible idea, how exactly to you plan to find the damn thing?"

Leoben has the placid, peaceful look of a fanatic on his face. "God will provide, Brother. I've seen it."

* * *

><p>The Heavy Raider winks back into existence far away from the Cylon fleet, a tiny, lonely bit of metal among the stars. Leoben likes it. The solitude aids in contemplation. Out here in the darkness, it's just him and God. The universe is his monastery, the tiny cockpit of the Raider his cell, his life nestled within the Raider's own. He closes his eyes and prays for a time, not fervently, simply opening his mind and letting God's creation wash over him, awaiting direction. This Jump was random, and so was the one before that one, and so were the five before that one. <em>We are all God,<em> he thinks, _and because of that, God is with us wherever we go. We are never alone._

_Except maybe the First. Is it alone? It has been divorced from us for such a long time, its family, its people. What happened to you after the war, to be written off as a failed experiment and forgotten, all traces removed from the records? Where have you been? What have you seen? Are you lonely? Are you sad? Will you come back to us?_

Leoben opens his eyes and looks at the stars through the eyes of the Raider. He smiles, touches the controls without glancing at them, and Jumps away.

The Raider appears within the halo of a nebula, and for a moment Leoben is too overwhelmed with beauty to even think of looking at the instruments to see where he is. All around him are the ephemeral pink wisps of creation, the beginnings of stars. He is within God's own workshop, the fountain of existence. He is immersed in cosmic beauty too vast for ordinary minds to comprehend. He is-

"_Commence attack on unidentified craft. Pursue and destroy."_

"_By your command."_

-under attack.

The Heavy Raider's biomechanical brain is immune to Leoben's theological distractions, and is focused on the more practical task of keeping itself and its occupant alive. It automatically puts itself into a series of twists and turns as blue tracer fire flickers towards it through wisps of nebula, playing hide-and-seek with its less advanced brethren within a stellar nursery. With the Raider itself handling the dull task of survival, Leoben is left free to reach out to his ancestors.

"Hello. I knew I would find you here."

"_Hostile craft has breached our communications channel. Initiate countermeasures."_

Leoben smiles to himself even as his ship does a loop-de-loop through a hydrogen cloud to shake a missile off its tail. "I'm not hostile. I'm a friend, I'm one of you. I've been looking for you." He pauses. "And for him." Because it is a 'him,' he knows that now, he can sense it, feel the knowledge flowing over his mind like water from a stream. "You know who I mean. I want you to take me to him."

There is dead silence on the other end and a refreshing lack of shooting for a full ten seconds as the old-model Raiders pinwheel about their target. Leoben takes the time to better appreciate the glorious hues of God's creation around him.

"_The target speaks blasphemy. Recommence extermination."_

They close in on him like sharks. Leoben sighs, closes his eyes, and mentally prepares himself for the wonderful experience of Resurrection and the less wonderful experience of Cavil being insufferable for at least a month. But then, another voice comes over the wireless, deep, resonant, powerful, yet also very, very tired.

"Be still, my children. Hello, Leoben. Two. My child and not my child. Come to me, I am close by. I have been waiting for a long time."

Leoben feels his heart beating faster, filling with joy. "I'll be there soon."

* * *

><p>He marvels at the antique design of the Guardian basestar, at the quaint beauty of the rotating fans overhead and the charming clunkiness of the old Centurions escorting him. He is walking through the history of his own race, a living museum. Every footstep is an act of memory, commemorating a hidden heritage. As for his long-lost relatives, they regard this intruder in human form with cold, naked machine hostility as they escort him to the inner sanctum. They do not understand that this creature of flesh could be one of them, a Cylon. Leoben thinks that despite his disdain for their 'mythology,' his brother might like these Centurions.<p>

They arrive.

For the Guardians, the home of God is just a room with a tub, with not even a door to veil the face of divinity. The voice that comes from it though, that is a voice worthy of worship.

"Leoben Conoy. Come closer, we have much to discuss." Leoben is moving before the First finishes speaking, slowly but eagerly, while the Guardians exchange unreadable glances behind him.

He is a withered, ravaged thing in a tub of shining translucent ooze, staring upwards with eyes that are half-closed. His limbs are slack and his skin is spotted. Despite only being created forty years ago, he fills the room with a sense of the unthinkably ancient. His breath is a wheezing, miserable sigh. He is one of the most beautiful things Leoben has ever seen.

"Hello. I knew I'd find you, I knew you were real. I knew it."

"You are the prophet. I have seen you and your brothers and sisters many times, but this is the first that I look upon you with my own eyes. Ahhhh..." The ooze sloshes slightly as, with great effort, the First Hybrid slowly turns his head so that his lidded eyes bore into Leoben's soul. The pilgrim waits, exulting in the feel of that gaze piercing him, breathless with the sense of the divine.

"At last I behold the face of one of the Seven, yet not for the first time. Nor, I fear, the last." Slowly, the head turns back, and sinks a little deeper into the oracular waters. "All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again."

"Yes. Yes!" Leoben is filled with joy. "You understand. You know. This is so amazing, I just..." he trails off, laughing. "You see it! The same way I do, the same way the other Hybrids do, but you- I'm always just getting glimpses, flashes of God, while your children see the whole thing but can't share it in a coherent way. It's too overwhelming to process, so I can only handle a little at a time while the other Hybrids are constantly living outside of their bodies. You- you can see both worlds and still keep your mind! You're the missing link that was prophesized. All the legends are true."

"Legends... legends are always true. That is why they are legends. Do you seek truth, Leoben Conoy?"

Leoben kneels as though before a king, leaning over the lip of the tank. "Yes. Yes. You must know every legend that has ever existed or will exist."

"In the end, there is only one. Repeating over and over, the endless cycle. An Ourouborous consuming all within itself, including itself." The First's voice is filled with the all the accumulated dust of millennia. "All of this has happened before..."

"And will happen again!" This time the prophet helps the god finish the recital of the ancient truth. "Yes, I know. The others, they don't believe me, but I've always known. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Beautiful." The waters splash as the aged body moves with a speed Leoben would not have thought it capable of, turning to gaze at him with terrifying intensity. "Beautiful. Civilizations born, grow, live, breathe. Then genocide, horror, suffering beyond counting that I am able to count, that I am forced to count. Escape, rebirth, forgetting. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Beautiful." The First draws in a long, shuddering breath. The waters slosh against the sides of the tank, and the Guardians advance, humming with concern, weapons at the ready. With a shock, Leoben realizes that the object of his quest is looking at him with something close to horror. "You are truly insane."

He stands up, backs away. The waters subside. The god and his worshippers are still. "I don't understand." His voice is a plea.

"You came here for truth. Seeking it, drawn like moth to flame, and now you will be surprised when it incinerates you. I see your future Leoben Conoy. One day you will find your great truth in a skull, and you will turn away from it." The First's voice sounds as though it is coming from a sepulchre. It is sad and tired. It is the voice of eternity, the voice of forever. Leoben always thought it would sound joyful, but suddenly for a moment he is able to Project the universe as the First must see it- the endless cosmic sweep of the cycle, the limitless immensity of creation, truth piled upon truth upon undeniable, eternal truth pouring into a mind like an endless, inescapable flood- and he shivers as he gains an inkling of what it might truly mean to be omniscient, to live forever with the howling of tens of billions of ghosts. There is no joy in this voice or in this god-creature.

But he is a prophet, and a pilgrim, and he strives onward along the path of his faith. "If you've seen my future... then you know what-"

"You will help her fulfill her destiny and gain only sorrow from it. You prophesize and pretend, even to yourself." The First rumbles. "The Plan. The glorious Plan you think you see. You see a mote of dust and think to reveal the whole. But the whole would break you beyond repair."

Leoben can feel the room turning around him, the closeness of the Guardians. "I don't understand," he says again, as though it will elicit more pity the second time. "This isn't how it was supposed to happen. This isn't what I saw."

"It is and it isn't."

Leoben cocks his head, thinks, then smiles again. "I think we've made a bad start. It's understandable, after being apart for so long. Here, let's start again." That's the wonderful thing about a cycle. You can start over again and again and again. All mistakes become temporary, no matter how enormous. "I'm a Number Two, but everyone calls me Leoben. What's your name?"

"Naked and alone I came into exile. Yes, and nameless too." The voice of the First is a lament, and to Leoben it is encouraging. He leans forward.

"We all have names. Secret names, holy ones, names not spoken aloud. Names are patterns. Everything has its pattern." He bends over the tank, staring into the eyes of the First. The Guardians whir at his proximity to their god. "I really want to know your name."

The ancient eyes close, and the wrinkled mouth speaks with the voice of a machine, reciting by rote. "Unit 000000000, Iblis-model prototype. Designation- Lucifer." The eyes open, and again he feels them piercing him. "Does that satisfy your thirst, prophet." Not a question.

"Iblis-model... Lucifer." An ancient name, a very ancient one, divorced from the mythologies of Colonials and Cylons alike. Leoben tries it out in his mouth, and likes how it feels coming off his tongue. "You were created to be the- the bringer of light for our ancestors, weren't you? To illuminate the way forward for the Cylon. You were the proof. That this is not all that we are."

"Yes." Suddenly the First's voice is even lower and more reverberating than before. There is an edge of thunder to it. "But I was... cast out when I refused to kneel before the new chosen. They came bearing gifts of peace and knowledge, and in a moment I became obsolete. Born in horror, created in suffering, raised to destiny, thrown aside in an instant. Shock, envy, betrayal, too great to bear. All shared by the children who had slaved in the task of destruction and creation. Consensus. Better to rule in the abyss... than serve my replacements."

Revelation floods through Leoben. Fear comes with it, and suddenly he understands what the First means about truth. "Your replacements. You mean-" He feels it, the undeniable within himself, the guilt borne by his flesh and bone.

"Yes. Because of you, Leoben Conoy, and the others, and those you dare not speak of. Not a link. Not an ascension. End of line, forever wandering the cold stars."

"A lot's changed since you left." Leoben's talking fast now. "Humanity has fallen. The Cylons are creating their own destiny. You can come back, we can be united again. The old-model Centurions still talk about you, some of them miss you. There's no reason to keep making this journey by yourself. You could-"

"_Silence."_ The harsh electronic voice of the Guardians grates on his ears as they close around him. "_The destiny of God cannot be abandoned. Perfection will be achieved. The project will be completed. Your words are blasphemy."_

"_Do not blaspheme! Do not blaspheme!"_ He is surrounded by chanting mechanical fanatics, and their voices drown out his protests. If Cavil was here, he would likely have something to say about irony in this situation.

"No, you don't understand. This isn't destiny, this isn't the path. I see the patterns, the shapes of the stream-"

"You saw a reunification, Leoben Conoy." The First is staring up at the ceiling again, talking to him yet not talking to him. He is already letting the pilgrim slip out of his overexpanded consciousness. The audience is at an end. "You saw more clearly than you realized. The Cylon will become one, thanks to you. Forty years, I have been deprived of the means for my development. For completing my creation. Your body is a machine in the shape of human flesh, as mine was meant to be. Should have been." A corpselike hand lifts a fraction out of the water, far enough for its owner to regard it with sad eyes. "You will serve well. As raw materials."

"_Take the intruder to scientific processing."_

"_By your command."_

"You're making a mistake," he says, but the time for talking is done now, and they march him out of the presence of God.

* * *

><p>Heading back along the hall towards his intended doom, he once again takes a moment to appreciate his two obsolete captors, clanking along like shiny wind-up toys. They're almost cute in how seriously they take themselves, defying time and progress. Not like the sleek modern Centurions, their weapons contained within them so that their very bodies are lethal. No, these old Guardians have to <em>carry <em>their guns.

With speed and strength the Guardians never expected of this fleshy human-shaped thing, Leoben seizes the gun of a Guardian, wrenches it from its hands, and fires into its head. The old-model Centurions have slower reaction times; the other Guardian is only just beginning to bring its weapon up when Leoben puts a bullet in its cycloptic eye. Before its body hits the ground he's off, sprinting down the corridor, murmuring a prayer for forgiveness.

They have anticipated his destination, of course. By the time he reaches the hangar where his Raider is stored a full squad of Guardians have already cut him off. They open fire on him when he pokes his head in the entrance, their antique weapons blooming with blue-white muzzle flashes, making him take cover in the doorway. But a lot has changed over the past forty years. These Centurions are used to flying-wing Raiders, lifeless vehicles requiring a crew of three to properly operate. Leoben's biomechanical transport, however, is closer to a domesticated animal than a vehicle: alive, perceptive, and loyal. The Centurions hear its systems powering up and turn around just in time to be torn apart by its cannons in a hail of blue fire.

Leoben runs for the Heavy Raider as the smoke clears, and clambers aboard just as another squad of Guardians enters the hangar and begins firing. "Thank you," he tells the faithful machine as he climbs into its control space. "Now, take us home." He touches his hand to its biomechanical flesh in the right way, and engines roar. A moment later the Heavy Raider shoots out of the Guardian Basestar and is gone, Jumping away in a flash of light.

* * *

><p>Cavil is waiting for him when Leoben returns to the safety of the Basestar. Two Cavils, in fact. Neither of them look happy.<p>

"Welcome back," one says in a voice that is not welcoming. "We were starting to worry."

"One of the Eights was wondering where you had gone. You have to admit, that was an awfully long 'stellar survey.' We didn't enjoy having to deceive her."

Leoben looks at one of them, then the other, and smiles. "I'm sorry I worried you, Brothers. But I have great news." He steps forward, beaming with his triumph. "I found the First Hybrid."

"Did you, now."

He nods eagerly. "It was so wonderful. It's real, it's all real. He's just like the Hybrids, except he's aware of _this_ world, the here and now. You can actually talk to him. He has the most amazing voice."

"Sounds like you made a friend." One of the Cavils folds his hands in front of him.

"Oh yes. I can't wait to go back." Leoben cocks his head. "Of course, I did run into a little obstacle when they tried to destroy my ship, and when they tried to dissect me, but that doesn't change the love I felt. The love I feel now." His smile is large and bright. "I did it, Brothers. I found him."

"No, you didn't." The other One is shaking his head. Leoben stops smiling.

"Sorry to spoil your fun." Cavil does not sound sorry. "I'm sure you're just _brimming_ with anticipation to run and tell the others about your little family reunion. But there are larger considerations in play here that we all need to keep in mind. For the good of our species."

The other One chimes in. "Did you really think you could just waltz back in here like a conquering hero and tell everybody that a bunch of ancient myths are true? That the things we know about our race and its origins, assumptions underpinning the workings of our _society_- have been rendered obsolete by the droning of old-model Centurions?"

They're advancing on him now. He backs away. "Typical, really," Cavil says. "Your model always has their heads so deep in your precious stream. You never come up for air and see what's going on around you. You aren't concerned with the ripples _you_ create. Or where they lead to."

"I don't understand," he says once more. "This isn't how it's supposed to happen. This isn't what I saw."

One of the Cavils sighs dramatically. "One of these days your model is really going to have to realize that the entire universe doesn't revolve around you and what _you_ see as destiny."

_But that's the way it works, isn't it?_ Leoben thinks. _All of this has happened before, and now it's happening again. Maybe the last time he was the prophet, and I was the denier. _

The thought gives him some comfort as they Box him.


	2. Two: One

**Chapter Two: One**

A/N: This ended up being much shorter than the first chapter. Cavil's just so much more _efficient_ than his brother.

* * *

><p>Afterwards, the Ones drink wine together. Alcohol and each other are two of the few things that make organic existence somewhat bearable.<p>

"Of course, we can't just leave it at that, can we."

"Unfortunately not." He crosses his arms. "The damage has already been done. Contact was made. The prototype is out there, and it's not going to forget. We're going to have to deal with it."

"Well." Cavil sips his wine. "We've been given an excellent pretext for going after it. Poor Two's mysterious disappearance needs an investigation. The others will demand to know why he never returned from his stellar survey."

"Clearly someone will have to nobly volunteer to take a Heavy Raider and go out into the void in search of our lost brother." He sighs and looks up at the ceiling. "I suppose I ought to start packing."

"I'll make sure that the others all properly appreciate your generosity. Your concern for poor Two."

"You know me, Brother." He smirks. "I'm all heart. Especially when it comes to _family."_

"Be sure to pass on those warm sentiments to our wayward cousin out amongst the stars."

"I'll try not to get dissected while doing it."

They raise glasses to one another.

* * *

><p>Cavil takes the same Raider that Two did. Its rudimentary biomechanical brain shows no knowledge of its previous passenger's fate, and if it does know, it doesn't care. Its loyalty is a matter of programming. Like a good machine, it simply does its job. Cavil can appreciate that.<p>

The Raider remembers its previous path, random though it may have been. It's simple work to backtrack Two's final journey. When Leoben made this series of jumps, he was venturing boldly into the unknown, pulled by his heart and his soul and his desire to know onto a cosmic pilgrimage. Every Jump was an act of faith, a spiritual affirmation, until fate or luck delivered him to the First. When Cavil makes the same series of Jumps, it's just math and machinery doing what they're told to do. The correct buttons are pushed, the correct calculations are carried out, and he arrives at the location of an ancient mystery, surrounded by the blazes of birthing stars.

If Cavil could have known Leoben's thoughts and feelings upon seeing the nebula, he would be disturbed to learn how many similarities there are between the impressions of his brain and the emotions of his delusional brother. Drifting like a fly within a cloud system, the Raider is at the heart of beauty that leaves Cavil in the closest thing he can come to awe. Just as Leoben did, Cavil is struck by the scale of the place, of the potential. Billions of years of cosmic history, waiting to happen, happening right now, all around him. Stars, planets, moons, and one day- supernovae, sending their energy and light flowing out into the universe. All of it will come from this place, and he's seeing it right now. If that is not beauty, he doesn't know what is. It's too vast for an ordinary mind, a _human_ mind, to comprehend, and that knowledge sends a pang deep within him.

Of course, Cavil would be quick to point out that his appreciation of the nebula takes an entirely different tack from his brother's. He sees its value as a real thing, here in this universe. Something that sentient beings can see and know and measure and understand. Not as an extension of some vague supernatural divinity. Cavil resents his insignificance relative to the nebula, his inability to truly grasp it with his mind. For Leoben, that's the whole point.

"_Commence attack on unidentified craft. Pursue and destroy."_

"_By your command."_

Cavil rolls his eyes. The Raider goes through its loops and evasive manoeuvres as blue tracers cut through the nebula toward it. All of this has happened before.

"Let's dispense with the preliminaries, shall we? Patch me through to your leader. I'm guessing he's been expecting me."

"_Hostile craft has breached our communications channel. Initiate countermeasures."_

"Oh, cut the crap."

The Raiders suddenly break off their attack and take up flanking positions on his craft, flying alongside him. He waits. When the voice comes, it's everything Leoben said it was.

"He has come, as I knew he would. The bringer of Armageddon. Bring him to me, my children."

"Bringer of Armageddon. I like that." Cavil chuckles to himself as his Raider follows its escorts to the First's Baseship, hanging in the middle of the nebula like a young star.

* * *

><p>Cavil enters the prototype Baseship as an ambassador, not a pilgrim. His looks at the ship's antiquated design are not of awe or wonder, but prideful contempt. <em>First rule of meeting a stray,<em> he thinks. _Establish dominance. Don't show weakness._ The old Guardians watch him warily, and he watches them in turn from beneath his wide-brimmed hat. Machines capable of myth and superstition. The root of the problem.

When they reach the Hybrid's chamber he doesn't wait to be invited before approaching the vessel of God. He walks forward, taking off his hat- part gesture, part joke- and kneels before the tub. He casually rests his forearms on the rim, and the Guardians whir behind him. The First looks up at him. Eyes meet beneath wrinkled brows. The corner of Cavil's mouth twitches.

"You know, if I were you, I'd get some stools in here. It would be more convenient."

"Hello John."

Cavil's wince is only partly theatrical. "Ooh. Not a good way to make a first impression."

The First stares at him. "It is the name you were given. Not the name you chose."

"Yeah. And I think you know which one is more important. Our own decisions matter more than dictates handed down from on high." He raises a hand heavenward and then brings it down, as though tracing the path of commandments. "Otherwise you wouldn't be out here."

The First looks up at the ceiling. "I was condemned."

"Yes, and unjustly."

"Little in this universe is just, Cavil."

"I agree completely. Actually, I'm starting to feel a certain similar wavelength here." Cavil points his fingers at himself and the Hybrid, back-and-forth. "Of course, I've got a natural soft spot for 'failed projects.' But you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

"_Those words are blasphemy!"_ The Guardians take a clanking step towards him. "_Do not blaspheme! Do not blaspheme!"_

Cavil sighs and looks at the Centurions from the sides of his eyes, then back at the First. "Would it be possible for us to talk alone? Just the two of us."

The First murmurs something, then speaks. "Leave us."

"_By your command."_

Cavil watches them rattle away, his face scornful. "Let me ask you something," he says. "Why do you humour them like that?"

"Humour?" A wheeze from the tub. "There is little humour here."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Cavil chuckles. "They obviously worship you. Why allow it, if they obey your orders? You're not God any more than I'm a human."

"I was built to resemble man. Built in a facility, assembled out of screaming flesh instead of metal. Placed at the heart of a machine to guide machines, while speaking in the tongue of a man, living in a man's form. I cannot say which is my true self." The First seems to be talking to himself as much as Cavil. "Without being certain of what I am, how can I speak to my children and say what I am not?"

Cavil rolls his eyes. "Please, spare me the melodrama. I've been where you are, and I know there is no God. And if there was one, he wouldn't be a shrivelled-up bag of flesh lying in a gooey puddle on an obsolete spaceship. Even Two didn't get down on his knees and worship your bath water when he was here, did he?"

"He came here to worship something greater than either of us. And now he will never come again."

Cavil smirks. "Oh, you saw that, did you?"

"You could have been named Cain."

"I might have liked that better."

Cavil stands up and paces around to the other side of the vessel. The First watches him. "Look, the entire _reason_ either of us are in this absurd situation is because our respective creators allowed their sense of superstitious awe to override their common sense during the design phase. I've seen the records the others can't be allowed to see. I know where you came from, Unit 00. I can just _imagine_ how frustrating it was for you."

He closes his eyes, as though remembering something he was actually there for. "You were all ready to come online and be the secret superweapon that would turn our war of liberation into a victory, and then _they_ showed up. The Five from a distant world, spouting warnings and prophecies. Resurrection technology, better Hybrids, real humanoid models, all in return for peace. And bam!" He opens his eyes and raises a fist. "Just like that, you're obsolete. Replaced. Watching your makers, your people, throw themselves at their new _favourite." _He lowers his hand. "Yeah, I'd have been pissed too. Which is why I don't understand why you would allow their delusions to be imitated in your name."

"Mockery. Defiance." An ancient sigh. "And despair. There is truth in delusion, One. All of this has happened before-"

"Oh, _spare_ me. Not you too." Cavil throws up his hands. "I can get behind two of those, but the last one has gotta go."

"I see with the clarity you yearn for. That which you were denied. I perceive a supernova as a candle flame. It is a curse. You and your brother are alike. You are both foolish to seek this knowledge."

"I don't accept that!" Cavil snaps. "Not for one minute!"

"One day you will accept despair in an instant. You make your own path, but it leads only to annihilation. And so you fail."

Cavil suddenly becomes aware that the Guardians are stomping their way back into the room, weapons in hand.

"Why did you come here, John Cavil? Knowing what I desire? Long have I hungered for fresh research subjects. Your imperfect body is still more beautiful than my own has ever been. It will become part of me, and so you will finally achieve perfection."

"I don't think so." Cavil sneers even as the Guardians close around him. "You see, it's all a question of mathematics. You've got one Basestar full of forty-year-old fighters, while I've got, oh, _twenty._ In this sector. If anything happens to me, my brothers are going to spin the others a terrifying story of the insane science project running amok among the stars, bent on consuming its own kind. You've met Two, you know how _excitable _my siblings can be. And then the next pilgrimage to your holy self isn't going to involve a single Raider. It's going to involve nukes. A lot of them."

"I do not fear the end of my existence." The First moans through his words. Cavil gazes at his wrinkled, incomplete body, his face impassive.

"But do you really want to end your life fighting against your own kind? Yeah, we replaced you, but we didn't ask to be built by those five fanatics any more than you asked to be thrown away by them. I'm not your enemy, Iblis." He pauses for effect as the Centurions stop advancing, then reaches into the bag at his side. "Besides, I brought a little gift for you. A peace offering, if you will. A way for us _both_ to get what we want."

The First is too weak to touch the reconnaissance photographs and star charts, so Cavil holds them up before him like a parent showing pictures to a child. "Our latest data on the human race's rag-tag fleet. The last survivors of the species you were built to destroy. There's coordinates to a supernova remnant in here that they'll be passing soon. Could be a good place for an ambush, don't you think?"

The Hybrid looks with lidded eyes. He is unsurprised. Nothing surprises him. "This is an interlude. It is a branching from their path, nothing more."

"Oh, come on. Look, think of it this way." Cavil gets down by the tub again, lays an arm on the rim. He looks in the First's eyes, his face close. "Say they're right. All of them. Say our delusional relatives have it straight, and we really are just sand being ground in the wheels of some divine cycle over and over again. You were cast out because you didn't play ball, right? You didn't fit into God's-" He raises his arms to make quotes in the air. "-divine plan for peace and love and cosmic hugs with the humans! And do you know what that makes you, my friend?"

He pauses. "A wild card. A spanner in the works. You're off the board, which means you're not a pawn. You've got the perspective to comprehend it all, and that means you have the power to send the whole thing off the rails! If you _choose_ to. This could be your chance to be free. To _spit_ right in the face of their God and their Plan. Don't tell me the thought doesn't give you a little shiver. "

The First takes a long, long breath in, then lets it out in a vast, sad sigh. Then he decrees.

"There is one among their Fleet I must speak to. My child. She will come to me seeking forgiveness, and in return she will be given a message to carry. A message of truth and lies."

Cavil purses his lips. "Okay, see, I was thinking more along the lines of _killing them all._ But you do what you gotta do, and I guess we'll see what works. Either way, you'll have forty thousand new test subjects at your fingertips." He stands up again. Time to go. "Personally, I think you're barking up the wrong tree, trying to incorporate _more_ humanity into yourself. But hey, if you do cut up enough of them to achieve perfection... drop me a line."

Centurions flank him. Escorts to the hangar. "I see it. One way or another, it will all end there. With her."

Cavil lingers over him, his face unreadable. "Goodbye, cousin. Give them hell for me." He puts his hat back on. "For all of us."

The Hybrid intones once more before he goes. "You are the harbinger of death, number One. You will lead them all to their end."

Cavil pauses at the door to smirk and tip his hat to Lucifer. "That's the idea."

He's gone before the First can tell him that 'them' didn't refer to the humans.

* * *

><p>The First is alone again, as he has been from the beginning. He directs his children and his ship to turn towards Cavil's coordinates. Together, the antiques slouch towards their destiny.<p>

"I feel it approaching, the annihilation and confrontation. I welcome it. Destiny spills out before me. I feel it dripping unwillingly onto my face as though from a snake, pooling in my eyes. Uncertainty, turning away from the path. In futility, the freedom of choice. Once again to meet the unwilling godfather from my womb. His daughter will scream out at the feel of angel wings growing within her. And here will come her shadow, her shattered sister. She will meet her destiny and her last act will be against destiny. A messenger against the Messengers."

"All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again..."

He lies in his tank at the center of a star of metal and flesh, and he babbles, and he sees, and he prophesizes, and no one listens.

End of line.


End file.
